US Presidential Elections: Wall Street casts first vote in $6-billion poll

Source: Center for Responsive Politics; The Independent; The New York Times

Wall Street, with its deep pool of billionaires and millionaires, is a key pit stop in the race for the White House. In 2008, it was leaning left. The then Senator Barack Obama had successfully charmed the sharp-suited throngs of lower Manhattan into backing him, lock, stock and chequebook.

Full Coverage of US Presidential Elections 2012

Goldman Sachs, no less, was his second-biggest contributor, based on donations from the firm’s political action committee and those individual donors who listed the investment bank as their employer. But now the pendulum has swung the other way.


Though individual contributions are capped at $2,500 per candidate, deep-pocketed donors have, under a 2010 US Supreme Court ruling, been funneling millions to outside groups allied with their choice. The ruling legalised unlimited corporate funds to independent ‘political action committees’. Enter Super PACs…